Sunday, August 9, 2009

After the pox-on-both-houses setup ("If this moment is squandered, it will be a sad indictment of the political system -- and there will be plenty of blame to go around"), the WaPo's lead editorial today summarizes the piles of craziness we've heard from the wingnuts about healthcare - euthanasia! government-run hospitals! compiling enemies' lists! - in a mere eight lines.

Then it spends the rest of the editorial - 43 lines, over five times as much ink - in dumping on Nancy Pelosi for criticizing insurance company practices, and - get this! - on Obama for not doing enough to prepare "some patients who have become accustomed to getting every test or procedure they want" that they may have to settle for the most effective procedure, rather than the one they want.

One, two, three: awwwwww.

And of course, regardless of the insurance companies' willingness to acquiesce to a bill where they "accept all applicants and generally charge the same amount, in exchange for a requirement that all individuals obtain insurance," the fact is that now, in the absence of a bill, they're still practicing insurance as they always have: by not insuring people that need it, by dropping people from their rolls the minute they need to be insured, and by refusing to pay claims that their policy covers.

Why the Dems shouldn't run against what the vile practices the insurance companies are doing now, and will continue to do way into the future if this bill doesn't pass, in order to drum up support for the bill, is certainly lost on me. But even yielding that point to the WaPo, for sake of argument, it's crazy that they find this five times as worthy of criticism as the wingnuts' outright insanity.

It's as if the WaPo has decided: it's okay for conservatives to be batshit crazy - we expect it of them, and it's not worthy of much comment. But if the Dems commit much more mundane political offenses, we'll jump on them with both feet.

About Me

This blog's about David Broder and his compatriots on the Washington Post editorial and op-ed pages. I read their idiocy every morning, and the only appropriate response seems to be ridicule. So here we are.